The first cell check of the day comes early in the maximum security wings of the Federal Penitentiary of Brasília, followed by the delivery of meals to the inmates. It was during that routine, on the morning of Sunday (30), that officers found Marcos Silas Neves de Souza, the leader of the criminal faction Cartel do Sul, unresponsive in his cell. His death was confirmed after the care team was called, according to Brazil's National Secretariat of Penal Policies (Senappen), which confirmed the information to GloboNews.
In an official note published by broadcaster Band, the federal agency said the death was a suicide, without giving details of the circumstances. News site g1 reported the death without stating a cause. Senappen said the competent authorities and other parties involved had already been notified and that the proper procedures were underway.
"The National Secretariat of Penal Policies informs that inmate Marco Silas was found unresponsive in his cell during the first routine search and meal delivery of this morning at the Federal Penitentiary in Brasília. After the competent care team was called, his death was confirmed. The death was a suicide." (translated from the official note)
Known by the nicknames Patrão and Amigo, according to news site Metrópoles, Marcos Silas was 42 and was seen as one of the main organized crime leaders in the state of Paraná and a central figure in international cocaine trafficking. He had been a member of the First Capital Command (PCC), Brazil's largest criminal faction, before breaking with the group and founding Cartel do Sul, described by g1 as an ally of the Red Command (CV), the faction that dominates Rio de Janeiro.
From a plastic surgery clinic to a cell in Brasília
The path that ended in a Brasília cell went through São Paulo in 2021. A fugitive from the Paraná courts, with three open arrest warrants, Marcos Silas was captured at a plastic surgery clinic near Paulista Avenue, where he was undergoing a procedure to change his appearance and carried false documents, g1 reported. Investigators described him as a drug money launderer who bought luxury real estate on the coast of Santa Catarina state: the Federal Police identified 260 apartments in his name.
After a period in the Paraná prison system, he was transferred in 2022 to a maximum security federal prison in Campo Grande, in Mato Grosso do Sul, and later to Brasília, a unit that Metrópoles notes houses the main PCC leadership. In 2024, a report by the penal police department of Paraná, cited by Band, pointed to a bribery scheme: a former department director, Francisco Caricati, allegedly received 1 million reais to place the trafficker in a block of the São José dos Pinhais prison where it would be easier to bring in a cell phone, and Marcos Silas allegedly paid another 500,000 reais to keep his transfer to a federal prison from being signed. An inquiry was opened by the Paraná public security department; his move to Brasília, Band reported, was unrelated to the case.
Inside the penitentiary, the routine went on after the death was confirmed, with the same rounds of cell checks and meal deliveries that marked this Sunday morning. The procedures now underway are expected to explain the circumstances of the death of a man considered by Band one of Brazil's biggest cocaine traffickers, inside a maximum security federal unit.